The Curve of Binding Energy III
By Amy Lawson, already read the first paragraph NOW for the rest of the story

I finally understand the jokes and there context a little better after reading the entire article and a few other articles written about Theodore Taylor and the risks of nuclear theft. I might be ruining the joke, but the woman talking to the plants thinks she is helping make them grow but in reality the plants don’t want to listen and are tired of her talking. This could be like the advice that Ted Taylor is trying to offer most these company’s don’t want to listen. Making nuclear materials safer might just make it more dangerous to keep them contained in the long run. The man and boy sitting in the chair referring to the fact that anyone can be an anchorman, could be referring to the fact that people like to talk, but in the case of the fat man and the little boy, the nuclear war that killed many people. Some people do more than talk.
I would like to call this an antithesis in the art of bomb making verses the threat of terrorism. In a collaboration of beautiful words and scientific equations, anyone could be capable of obtaining uranium or plutonium and making a bomb. If Theodore Taylor was really worried about his children, communicating all this information to John Mcphee to write an article posted in the New Yorker might not be the safest idea, especially if he was worried about how easy it was to obtain the nuclear materials. If this article was written today, it might be accompanied with a warning not to try this at home. Canada is rich in uranium and as long as it stays underground, that is fine with me. Not to mention that the internet has directions for any kind of bomb you might like to make.
John Mcphee goes on to explain how Ted Taylor founded a firm called The International Research and Technology, with the sole purpose to become a private monitor of nuclear materials. But Ted Taylor would rather, “do more creative things and less nuclear watch dogging.” On page 88 they have put a decoration of a vase filled with paint brushes, a mural and some paints. This is encouraging the reader to paint their own picture. The phrase “a self respecting ambitious terrorist has better things to do then take nuclear materials,” this really paints a picture, then Roger Wiggins who is a manager of Westinghouse’s Plutonium-fuel-fabrication plant refers to, “ how people forget that botulism could put the whole city to an early death.”(88)